Helge Hafting wrote:
This particular one isn't that inconsistent: Enter terminates a paragraph and starts a new one. Empty paragraphs are disallowed because latex won't print them anyway.
That's not necesarily the reason. One thing is latex, another is LyX: if they would make some sense in LyX, this could probably be easily overcomed. Of course they don't make sense, but that's another story.
I have the impression that this is how it started, with lyx as a wysiwym word processor front-end for latex. I might be wrong, I'm not one of the "deciding developers" after all.
ctrl+enter inserts a linebreak without breaking up the paragraph. You can have as many as you like of these, it might be useful if filling out a form perhaps. These breaks have exact line height.
...which in turn, depends on the font I guess. So you want to allow this
It depends on the font of course, it is meant to be a line break in the current font. It is useful at times.
kind of dirty formatting for _filling forms_? (I think that LyX is maybe the worst tool for doing that, but what do I know)
I wouldn't necessarily call this _the_ reason for allowing ctrl+enter, but yes, I filled out a form this way yesterday. Much prettier than using a pen, particularly with my ugly handwriting. :-/
And lyx is an okay tool for this, because:
1. I know how to set the exact lineheight in lyx to match the form.
(\fontsize{<fontsize>}{<line height>})
2. I don't know this trick for any other possible tool. Well, latex of
course but I don't want to write everything in latex.And note that the current behaviour would be annoying even for filling forms: you want to replace some text and your carefully placed 17 linebreaks get eaten when you delete the old text with backspace.
Actually, I used a table for most of it. There were a free-form "other information" field where I used normal text to get ordinary line breaking.
If you plan on revoking ctrl+enter, please provide alternatives first. Try writing a letter using the letter class without it, it is necessary if you want a multiline address for example.
Be aware that lyx is used for much more than text+headings. I write a book where some of the floating figures are made mixing text, tables and math for example. Sometimes you just don't need a picture.
Helge Hafting
